The last contract expired June 30, 2016, and in the 12 months since the hospital has made little effort to renegotiate according to Richard Mack, an attorney with Miller Cohen PLC who is representing the union’s 1,020 workers.

“The hospital management has been dragging its feet for almost a year now, it just really doesn’t make sense given the kind of crisis Flint has been in and with Hurley being on front lines helping people deal with lead poisoning and its effects,” said Mack, noting that Hurley is public which means it must take anybody, and that often means those who need the most help and can least afford it.

According to Mack, after the last contract ended in June 2016, the union did not receive its first full wage and economic package until six-months later in December. The labor attorney says that typically negotiations are supposed to wrap up before a contract expires. The lap in time, he says, is indicative of “bad faith bargaining,” which is illegal according to the National Labor Relations Board.

A hospital statement released Tuesday night by communications officer Ilene Cantor said: “Hurley Medical Center has a long history of negotiating with multiple unions, national and independent, that represent over 85% of the work force. Although the RNRPh Union Leadership is new to their negotiating roles and lack the benefit of past experience in negotiations, we remain committed and confident that a fair and equitable contract will still be worked out, despite the bargaining sessions with this union taking longer than anticipated."

Without a new contract, Mack says the hospital has been able to avoid staffing standards, which has led to $2.5 million in mandatory overtime being paid out from September 2016 to March 2017.

“The nurses are furious about it, they are upset about the fact that the hospital has been breaking the law over and over,” said Mack.

Timothy Craig, 43, is one of those nurses. An employee of Hurley for nearly a decade, Craig says that while he and his colleagues have continued to put their patients first, there is still a frustration with the current management.

“The staffing is terrible, we're understaffed as usual,” said Craig, who contends it’s hard to get a fair contract when only one side is willing to bargain.

“They’re making lots of profits but not staffing as if they are. So we’re short staffed and doing hard work for a community that really needs help,” he added.

According to the Registered Nurses and Registered Pharmacists Union president Pam Campbell, in a six-month period last year, 36,000 hours were paid out in overtime, which she says is the equivalent to 19 full-time staffers.

“Our contract says they can’t mandate more than a total of 16 hours working, but if we didn’t have any language then it would be a free-for-all,” she said. “Even with the language it really is hard to plan your life.”

While the union has toyed with the idea of setting a date to hold a vote to strike, for the time being, officials say they are hoping to avoid disrupting the already fragile hospital ecosystem.

According to attorney Mack, the hospital management recently turned over a new proposal and the union is hopeful that management will actually come to the table and bargain with them this time around.

“Members will sit on one side of the table and empty chairs will be on the management side,” said Mack. “We hope they will come out and bargain.”